


Hard Times

by Miniatures



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Jay is oblivious and this extends to his bodily functions, Light Angst, M/M, Romance, Smut, mostly the latter two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 09:12:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3845350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miniatures/pseuds/Miniatures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or: In which Jay gets a boner (or several), and Tim does something about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard Times

The speed with which Tim and Jay went from “begrudging partners in videography” to “fucking on motel beds” really said a lot about the state of their lives. No point sucking up the sexual tension when one could be dragged off by paranormal abominations at any time. That was a first for Tim—mostly because he hadn’t _had_ sexual tension with anyone. Ever. What little sex he’d had had been casual, awkward, and stiff. And he just felt _gross_ afterwards, not emotionally but physically, like his skin was wax paper wrapped around the dirty burger of his guts. Because sex was sticky and sweaty, and to Tim all post-coital looseness meant was that his mind was more susceptible to outside influence.

Which was bad. 

All of that had gone tumbling through his brain when Jay kissed him, his mouth tasting like the gas station pizza they’d just finished eating. They’d been bouncing around for a week now, and since they weren’t in any obvious danger at the moment Tim guessed Jay had figured it was as good a time as any.

The kiss was clumsy and wet and slow. At first Tim had kissed back, because it was Jay. But then he’d stiffened, because it was _Jay._ Jay, who was cute and good and stumbled into things he shouldn’t stumble into. Jay, who made Tim feel sick in that stomach-flippy way that he knew, theoretically, signaled affection.

And that was also bad.

Tim grabbed Jay’s wrists—and okay, he could _feel_ how fast his pulse was racing—and pulled away.

“Crap, I’m sorry.” Jay’s breath was warm and wet against Tim’s mouth as he spoke. Their faces were still close enough together that Tim’s eyes were crossing trying to keep Jay in focus, so he shifted back on the bed a little more. Kept his hands on Jay’s wrists to anchor himself, to assure both of them that he wasn’t doing this because he didn’t want to touch.

“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay, just—” _Sex with me is grease and lonely nights and the very strong possibility that I’ll wander off in a white mask afterwards and you deserve better._ “I dunno if it’s a good idea.”

“What, because of all the…” Jay scrunched his nose. “Stuff?”

“Yeah.” Tim let go of one of Jay’s wrists, rubbed the back of his neck. It felt cold, suddenly, and exposed, and sort of itchy in a _somebody’s watching_ way. Most likely somebody was, the eyeless perv. Tim laughed, short and humourless. “You’d probably regret it in the morning, y’know?”

Jay opened his mouth, then closed it just as quick. Tim could _see_ him processing his words, could practically hear the mechanical whirring of his brain. God, he was easy to read. No wonder he hid behind cameras all the time.

“You think,” he said finally, “that _I’d_ regret it? Not us, just me?”

“Well… yeah.” Tim waved his free hand in the vague direction of their duffel bags. Of his pills. “I’m the one with the alter ego, not you. I’m the one with that _thing’s_ hooks in his brain.”

Jay fell quiet and still, and Tim figured he’d gotten through to him. He considered letting go of Jay’s wrist. Decided against it, because it was warm and _there_ and _Jay._ Tim closed his eyes.

Then his hand and the wrist were lifting, and there was a cool, slightly sweaty palm on each side of his face and a gust of warm pizza-breath against his mouth.

Tim felt his lips quirking up at the corners, and he bit back the growing smile. He wasn’t allowed to feel good about this. “You really _are_ an idiot, aren’t you?” he murmured.

“Oh, completely.”

“I wasn’t kidding, or like, trying to score sexy brooding points or whatever. I’m serious.”

“Do you not want to?”

Tim opened his eyes. They crossed again to meet Jay’s, but he wasn’t about to move away this time. “I never said _that_.”

Jay smiled. It was goofy and wide and so fucking genuine that Tim almost felt like shame-crying right there in the bed. This was _such_ a bad idea. But he wanted Jay, and Jay wanted him, and Tim had never been very good at impulse control. 

His free hand came up to cup the back of Jay’s neck, and then there was no space between them at all.

Jay’s mouth was hot and inviting, and Tim couldn’t help it—he moaned. He moaned and he’d never been one for extended makeouts but oh, he could do this forever. Jay moved forward, pushing Tim back against the mattress, his fingers moving up into Tim’s hair. Tugged, and Tim moaned again.

“Noisy,” Jay chuckled between kisses.

“Mmm,” was Tim’s only answer, because he wasn’t, usually. But he could feel Jay’s heart hammering against him, he could feel the press of Jay’s erection against his thigh, and this wasn’t casual, awkward, or stiff at all. Well—he bucked his hips up against Jay, and Jay gasped into his mouth—it was _kind of_ stiff.

Tim let his hands roam under Jay’s shirt and up his back, reveling in the way his skinny body shivered at Tim’s touch. Jay began grinding down, the jut of his cock pressing firm against Tim’s, and goddammit there was too much denim in the way here. Pleasure was sparking low in Tim’s gut, coiling cold and sharp. He made a questioning noise and Jay pulled away, panting and pink-faced.

“Roll off a sec,” Tim said, and Jay did. Tim sat bolt upright and started shucking clothes; Jay’s eyes widened and he followed suit. His body was lean—like, scary lean. All undeveloped muscle and knobby joints and pink, raw skin. He sat there with his legs apart, cock curved and flushed, completely unselfconscious, and Tim was suddenly ashamed all over again. Ashamed by how much he wanted Jay, how much pain he’d inadvertently caused him just by being in his life, by the way Jay could just bare it all while Tim was fighting the urge to cover his chest.

If Jay was skin and bone then Tim was fat and meat, broad and round in front no matter what he did. His therapists had spouted loads of shit about body acceptance over the years, when he was doing well enough otherwise that his self-esteem had a chance to come under fire.

That had not happened nearly enough.

Tim kicked off the last of his clothes and looked down at himself, all belly roll over hard dick over big thighs, and wanted to disappear. But Jay made a keening noise in the back of his throat and dove over him again, pinning him flat on the bed once more. He mouthed at Tim’s throat with all the expertise of a fifteen-year-old virgin, but it didn’t fucking matter because now they were all skin on skin, and everything was heat and sweat and the slick slide of precome as they rutted against each other. 

Their hands were roaming and they couldn’t get enough—and it should have been uncomfortable, the way they were poking at each other, prodding and tickling and communicating through a series of moans and grunts and snickers, but it wasn’t. It _wasn’t_.

Jay lifted his hips slightly and reached between them, gripping both of their cocks in one hand. He began to jack them slowly, clumsily, his head hanging low above Tim’s. Tim gripped at Jay’s shoulders, fingers biting into bone as his world narrowed to his groin, to Jay’s hand and Jay’s cock and Jay’s quickening breath. His nerves sparked electric, each smooth slide of Jay’s palm shooting a thrill up his spine.

“Fuck,” he hissed, feeling his balls start to tighten. Jay wasn’t doing much better, his whole body trembling over Tim like a leaf. “Fuck, gonna…”

“ _Tim_ ,” Jay choked out, and the sound of his name in Jay’s mouth sent Tim barreling over the edge. His head fell back and he came on a drawn-out moan, bliss rolling through him in waves from his cock to his fingertips. There were starbursts in his skin, firing off as Jay’s hand gentled him through the aftershocks.

Jay followed a moment later, spilling heat onto Tim’s belly with a sharp cry.

They collapsed together, all slick and slaphappy and breathing hard. Jay burrowed his face in the crook of Tim’s neck, wrapping spindly limbs around his body. And Tim clung back tighter, because there was a very real chance that they’d forget about this and he didn’t want to, he really didn’t want to.

“Mmm.” Tim could feel Jay’s mouth curving into a smile against his skin. “Awesome, Tim… so awesome…”

“Shut up,” Tim said, but he said it gently. 

Jay was asleep in minutes, and Tim waited. Waited for the pleasure to fade and the dirty, ugly feeling to come. Waited for the tug of black fingers at his lax mind, for him to hate himself again.

He fell asleep soon after, still waiting.

 

Tim woke up naked and alone and tacky with come and sweat—he almost panicked, but a cursory glance about the room showed that Jay was sitting in a wicker chair with his laptop out, spooling through footage. His hair was damp and his skin looked scrubbed clean. That seemed like a pleasant state to be in; Tim figured he should get in on that.

He cleared his throat, and Jay looked up. Grinned that wide, goofy grin again.

“Morning,” he said, and sounded way too pleased with himself.

Tim raised an eyebrow and swung his legs off the bed, self-consciousness forgotten in his state of early morning grog.

He peed and showered and headed out to the gas station by the motel to pick up breakfast. The night before was smoke in his head—he knew, distantly, what had happened, but he was having a hard time fully registering it. He’d fucked Jay. But there was no way that had actually happened. But it had. But it couldn’t have.

Fuck, he needed a smoke.

When he finally returned to the motel room, Jay was staring at the laptop screen with one hand clapped over his mouth. Tim locked the door behind him and came around the back of Jay’s chair, heart in his throat. This could only mean bad things.

“What’s—oh, shit.” Tim blinked at the screen. At the view of the motel bed, meant to catalogue their nighttime visitors or possible transgressions, but instead presenting them with a lovely view of last night’s fuck.

Well. “Fuck” might’ve been the wrong word. Tim was loath to admit it, but he acknowledged—with a curious twist of his guts—that what he and Jay were doing on that screen was straight-up lovemaking.

“You, uh,” he said. “You’re cutting that out of the YouTube reel, right?”

Jay glanced up at him, eyes wide and his hand still plastered over his mouth. He nodded, let his fingers slide away. “I… I didn’t forget, but I almost…”

“Didn’t quite sink in, huh?”

“No.” Jay gave a fierce shake of his head. “Not… really.”

“Yeah, same.” Tim rubbed the back of his neck. It itched again, and he wondered whether or not the skinny fucker got off on watching their weird little drama. “Look, I…” He had no idea what he wanted to say after that. Whatever words he’d hoped to dredge up were clinging to the inside of his throat like plastic wrap.

Luckily, he was spared having to unstick them when his eyes dropped and he realized that Jay was _fully fucking erect_ , his jeans tented to the point where it looked like they might bust a seam.

“Um.”

Jay frowned. “What?”

“Well, uh, you seem pretty _happy_ with your findings.” Tim let himself smile at that one. He’d earned it.

Jay’s frown deepened. He followed Tim’s gaze down to his crotch and gave a little jump. “Oh! Shit, what the hell?”

“It’s called a boner, Jay. You played with two of ‘em last night.”

“Yeah, but—crap, when did _that_ happen?”

Tim arched an eyebrow. “Dude, I know we both have memory loss, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t extend to hard ons.” 

Jay flushed, which shouldn’t have been as adorable as it was. “I… didn’t even realize.”

“Are you… are you serious? You didn’t notice you were hard?”

Jay scrambled to his feet and set the laptop on the floor, tossing Tim a hard glare before stomping off into the bathroom and shutting the door.

Tim shook his head. “Didn’t even notice he was hard…” he muttered, and took Jay’s place in the wicker chair. Picked up the laptop and rewound to the start of their accidental sex tape. They looked _good_ together. They almost looked happy. Tim’s lips quirked again, and he began to gnaw on the lower one absently. Maybe this whole fucking situation didn’t have to be quite as bad.

He resolved, with his second real smile of the day, to give Jay a hand the next time he popped an unexpected boner.

 

The next time turned out to be surprisingly soon. Tim woke one morning to the hot press of an erection against his backside, and turned his head to find Jay snoring lightly behind him. He debated the pros and cons of waking Jay. Tim had never been one for morning sex—mostly because he’d rarely had the opportunity to wake up next to a willing person—but he had to admit that the close proximity of cock and ass at even this ungodly hour was doing it for him.

Before he could ponder the implications of that, Jay stirred. Jolted awake with a soft, snorty gasp, tucked his chin over Tim’s shoulder.

“Hey,” he mumbled, and Tim wondered, distantly, when they’d gotten so domestic. Being on the run from eldritch horrors should _not_ have fostered a domestic atmosphere, but there they fucking were.

Jay stretched, and the roll of his hips against Tim drew obscene, startled noises from both of them. Just as Tim made up his mind to slide down and suck cock until his jaw ached, Jay gave an uncomfortable wriggle and said—“Ugh, let me up, I think I gotta pee.”

Tim rolled over to face him, frowning. “You _think_? Jay, you don’t have to _pee_ , you have fucking morning wood.”

Jay made a face. “What? No, I don’t.”

“Look. I know what a boner feels like.” He lifted the sheets and peered down. “And I know what a boner _looks_ like. You’re hard, man.”

There was a brief pause, and Jay’s hand rustled under the sheets until, presumably, it found his cock. His eyes widened. “You may be right.”

Tim couldn’t help it. He laughed. It just rolled on out of him and his chest felt lighter for it, like he’d let something go. He leaned forward and gave Jay a quick kiss.

“Want me to take care of that for you?”

Jay squeaked. “Yes, please.”

 

The time after that was when it got weird. They’d finished compiling the day’s footage and had proceeded to screw each other senseless. Because it was easy to forget that you were hunted, easy to forget that you were terrified to look over your shoulder when you were all fucked out. Tim had recently discovered that while Jay’s cock against his ass felt good, _his_ cock in _Jay’s_ ass felt better, and if Jay’s reaction was anything to go by, the feeling was mutual.

So now they were naked and spooning, thin sheets wrapped around them and the motel room’s TV aiming blue, staticky footage of CGI dinosaurs at their eyeballs. And Jay, Tim realized with a creeping sense of dread, was hard again.

Jay was tucked in Tim’s lap and he squirmed a little when Tim went stiff at his back. “What’s the matter?”

Tim sighed. Again. A-fucking-gain.

“I can see your boner, Jay.”

“I’m not—oh.”

“Okay, I’m gonna ask you this one time, and I want you to answer me honestly. Are you sexually attracted to dinosaurs?”

“Fuck off.”                                                                                 

“That’s not even kind of reassuring.”

“I hate you.”

“You want a hand, Jay?”

“… Yeah.”

“You know you should really get this whole not-noticing-when-you’re-hard thing checked out. Like, later.”

“Stop— _uhn_ —worrying. Shit, your hands are cold.”

“Mmm.”

“They— _fuck_. They _are._ ”

“I said _mmm_.” Tim nibbled at Jay’s ear, bit back a smirk at the way he leaned into it. “That means _yeah_.”

“W-what? It— _shit,_ Tim—it doesn’t.”

“It’s a vaguely committal noise. It can mean anything.”

“ _Tim_ ,” Jay gasped, head falling back slightly. Tim huffed a triumphant little laugh in his ear—that wrist-twist had proven effective on many a lonely night, and he’d been dying to try it on Jay.

“Gonna come for me?” he said in a low voice, and it was almost funny just how responsive Jay was to the sound.

“Yeah— _fuck_ —gonna… m’gonna…” Jay arched his back and came over Tim’s fist with a strangled noise. He fell back into Tim’s lap with a low _huff_ and wriggled until he was comfortable again. “Thanks.”

Tim petted his hair absently, smiling. This could be easy, he thought. This might even be good. “Any time.”

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Myssi for this one, who is responsible for the headcanon that Jay rarely notices when he's hard. And for the dinosaurs. 
> 
> This fandom is sorely lacking in non-bittersweet porn, and I'm a self-indulgent romance junkie.


End file.
